Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Miyoko Akashi

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. There really does not seem to be a strong agreement either on (a) whether the coverage provided is significant and (b) whether there's a rebuttable presumption of notability based on her position. The lack of English language sources does not preclude the existence of an article, but does seemingly preclude a conclusive discussion on whether those sources demonstrate notability. ~ mazca ^talk 10:13, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Miyoko Akashi

Miyoko Akashi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Another non-notable diplomat biography per WP:DIPLOMAT ("Diplomats who have participated in a significant way in events of particular diplomatic importance that have been written about in reliable secondary sources.")

Similar to Khalnazar Agakhanov (below), this is one of about 80 minimal stubs in Category:Asian diplomat stubs that may be non-notable. AFAIK Akashi, like most other diplomats, has never been involved in an “event of particular diplomatic importance”. A typical minor official, her article was referenced by government reports that proved ephemeral.

This Afd may be opposed by editors who believe that diplomats and other unelected officials have automatic notability (unlike writers, artists, scientists, politicians, sportsmen etc.). Kleinzach 06:01, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. I believe that permanent ambassadors have presumptive notability, just like scientists who hold named chairs, politicians who hold national or international offices and professional athletes. Pburka (talk) 11:56, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:32, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:32, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. I also believe that ambassadors have a presumption of notability. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:50, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. I do not agree that ambassadors have a presumption of notability. First, ambassadors have generally " been reduced to spokespeople for their foreign offices." In the United States, ambassadors may be career foreign service officers or political appointees. Our guidelines for diplomats state that they must either meet WP:GNG or "who have participated in a significant way in events of particular diplomatic importance that have been written about in reliable secondary sources." Enos733 (talk) 15:16, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. It's difficult to see how this satisfies the general notability guidelines given the lack of third-party sourcing or in-depth coverage. --DAJF (talk) 03:04, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

  I note that Google News has several pages of results about Miyoko in Lithuanian. I couldn't find anything in Japanese, but that's probably due to my lack of knowledge of the language. Pburka (talk) 03:25, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• Keep The person has coverage, there is no rule that the coverage be in English.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:24, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Coverage (or even mentions in newspaper articles) does not necessarily meet the standard set in WP:GNG (see aslo WP:NOTNEWS). The criteria is what is in the articles - are the articles about the subject, or are they about a particular event where the subject is mentioned in passing. Enos733 (talk) 19:13, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• Delete - coverage must be more than just a passing reference. If we are going to say he is notable for being a diplomat, we need sources that go into some detail as to his activities as a diplomat. Blueboar (talk) 01:53, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Keep, Wikipedia should have articles on all permanent ambassadors for the same reason it should have articles on all national legislators, judges on national courts, etc. You can call that "inherent notability" if you like, or a presumption that GNG will always be satisfied for such individuals; I really don't care because satisfying notability guidelines (which are a good but not perfect proxy for determining what is or isn't important enough to include) should not be a concern with obviously important subjects such as this, so long as we follow the policies of V, OR, NPOV (which actually are important all the time). Or you can call it an WP:IAR invocation, because deleting articles on permanent ambassadors does not improve the encyclopedia in any way. postdlf (talk) 01:59, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment The diplomatic community is a large one. There are over 200 countries in the world — we are talking about thousands of individuals. Should they all have an automatic right to a Wikipedia article in English? Ambassadors of major countries, in major countries, will normally be well-covered by sources, but ambassadors of minor countries in minor countries — basically running visa and commercial support offices — will only be mentioned by their own official media, or in many cases, just in lists. Having looked through a largish number of these articles, I’ve found found most of the minimal, unreferenced stubs in articles about ambassadors of middle and small-sized countries, usually created by an editor going through a government list (such as Foreign Affairs International Trade Canada [1]). The problem with declaring all ambassadors notable, if that we will then have to automatically list all other unelected officials of equivalent rank. This will gradually turn Wikipedia into something like LinkedIn. Is that really the way we want to go? Kleinzach 03:53, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
  • There are many more members of national and sub-national legislatures, but we have already established that they have inherent notability. In any case, most minor nations appoint one ambassador to a collection of countries and only have dedicated ambassadors in major or neighbouring countries. It's consuls who run "visa and commercial support offices", not ambassadors. And what on earth has English got to do with it? English Wikipedia does not discriminate against subjects from non-English-speaking countries. Should we have articles on all other unelected officials of equivalent rank? Yes. Ambassadors hold very senior rank and most officials of a similar rank are indeed notable. Should we have articles on all other unelected officials? No, of course not. Your argument is a pure straw man. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:26, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I also really don't get Kleinzach's claim that we "have to automatically" include anything just because we include something else; we can draw whatever lines we deem most reasonable. Nor do I understand the underlying premise, that it is good to delete articles on one category of subjects just to avoid having articles on another category of subjects.

      Further, Kleinzach is conflating a number of completely separate issues. Whether there is enough reliably sourceable content on a subject is not the same as whether it satisfies written notability guidelines, and as a matter of ordinary editing we may decide that some ambassadors should, pending further available information, just be mentioned in a list of office-holders, whether in table form giving just names and dates or with a separate header and brief paragraph for each one like we do with lists of fictional characters. Troutsmack to the nominator for jumping to AFD to determine that with a sledgehammer rather than trying to develop, merge, and/or reformat the content in a way that preserves the information. postdlf (talk) 16:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Delete Subject has not received significant coverage in independent sources, has not participated in any significant world events, and seems to be a decent but undistinguished member of the Japanese diplomatic corps. I would not oppose a merge or redirect to some list of Japanese diplomats, but there isn't notability for a standalone article. Ray^Talk 16:27, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

  Have any editors fluent in Japanese or Lithuanian searched for sources? I've searched for the Kanji(?) characters listed as her name and found a few relevant hits (e.g. [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]) but I'm having trouble interpreting them. Some suggest that she may have had a cabinet position before becoming an ambassador. Others look like tables of contents hinting at greater coverage. However the Google translations are poor so I'm not confident in my interpretation. Pburka (talk) 23:53, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I read Japanese (albeit slowly). As far as I can tell none of the references above are 'news' items, certainly none of them come from a national newspaper or similar. The most substantial item seems to be number 41 which refers to a three page paper on foreign travel safety by the subject. (It seems she has also written a few other articles for journals.) Kleinzach 10:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.